(Read the court order dismissing the suit.)
BY BRADEN CARTWRIGHT
Daily Staff Post Writer
A judge has dismissed Bullis Charter School’s lawsuit that alleged the Santa Clara County Board of Education is imposing racial quotas at the expense of Asian students.
Bullis didn’t show that it was being treated differently from other schools and acknowledged that no express racial quotas exist, U.S. Magistrate Judge Virginia DeMarchi said in her decision on July 11.
“It remains unclear precisely which theory or theorics of liability BCS means to assert,” DeMarchi said, giving Bullis until today (Aug. 1) to file an updated lawsuit.
(After this story was printed, Bullis filed a second amended complaint, which can be found here.)
The federal case stems from the Board of Education’s 4-3 vote on Aug 26 to renew Bullis Charter School for another five years — with the condition that Bullis develop a plan to “increase its enrollment of historically underserved student groups.”
Former board member Grace Mah, who represented northern Santa Clara County, voted to renew the charter unconditionally.
“Targets and metrics are kind of like quotas,” Mah said.
But the majority of the board required Bullis to detail its demographics, targets for each year and ways to measure progress.
For example, Bullis would calculate the percentage of students in a “socioeconomically disadvantaged” category, currently 3.7%, and a target, like 5%.
Students are considered “socioeconomically disadvantaged” if neither parent has a high school diploma or if they qualify for free lunch.
The Los Altos School District has 7% of its students in this category across nine schools.
Bullis’ argument
Bullis attorney Lee Rosenberg said the county board is trying to reduce the number of Asian students at Bullis and increase the number of Latino students.
The county board is “insisting that BCS achieve de facto ‘racial quotas,’ but conveniently resist calling them that in light of the illegality of the term,” Rosenberg said in the lawsuit.
Rosenberg’s lawsuit looked back to the earliest wave of immigration from China in the 1800s.
“Asians have faced rampant discrimination throughout California and the United States, from the Chinese Exclusion Act, to the Alien Land Law of 1913, to mandated school segregation in San Francisco, marriage restrictions, to Japanese interment,” he said.
Open to all
Bullis is open to any student who wants to attend, and its enrollment is determined by a random lottery, Rosenberg said.
“Race is not considered at all as part of the application nor in the admission process,” he said. One in four students in Los Altos goes to Bullis, which is split between portables at two middle schools.
Bullis has 62% Asian students, 17% white students and 5% Hispanic students, the lawsuit said.
In comparison, the Los Altos School District is 40% Asian, 36% white and 10% Hispanic, the lawsuit said.
Previous criticisms
Bullis has been criticized by the Los Altos School District for allegedly serving wealthier families while leaving low-income and special needs students to attend public schools.
The Los Altos School District will transfer $10.7 million in property taxes to Bullis Charter School and provide $865,000 in portable classroom rentals for the upcoming school year.
Los Altos Superintendent Sandra McGonagle said in September that three special needs students were bullied at Bullis and offered education plans that didn’t meet their needs.
Bullis has “an atmosphere that has discouraged and continues to discourage enrollment of a truly diverse student population,” Los Altos board member Bryan Johnson said at the time.
In response, Bullis Superintendent Maureen Israel told the Board of Education that she’s been trying to recruit different kinds of students by hiring a bilingual outreach director and creating a preference in the enrollment lottery for low-income students.
The low-income preference is capped at 10% of students who enter the lottery each year, and Bullis isn’t reaching the cap, Israel said.
Bullis’ other lawsuit
The county board required Bullis sign an agreement with the county board to remove the 10% cap, among other changes. Bullis signed the agreement under protest, and then filed its lawsuit.
Bullis also sued the Board of Education in Santa Clara County for allegedly withholding records related to its charter renewal. Both sides are awaiting a ruling from Judge Vincent Chiarello on whether the case can proceed.
It’s pretty obvious that the school population does not represent a make-up of what diverse student population should look like. I don’t see any handicapped students going to school there. Generally speaking it would not be that important to me if it were not for the fact that kids from the neighborhood are often not admitted. For me the access question is a much more important one. In the long run the quality of life in the neighborhood around the school is down-graded because too many students come from non-walking distance locations. The Egan field used to be an area for recreation. It is now an area that serves almost nobody in the area between San Antonio, El Camino, and Los Altos Ave. If that field can be used again, it would be some consolation for not having a recreational area. Right now it’s just cars, cars, cars. I was meant to be temporary. Gardner Bullis was reborn, which leaves our area here to deal with a consistently non-local student population.
Imagine a world where all the money Bullis spends on lawsuits were spent on educating our youth!